Milosevic body to be flown to Serbia

The body of formerYugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic will be flown from the Netherlands to the Serbian capital, Belgrade, in the next few hours.

Photo: Milosevic body to be flown to Serbia

Mr Milosevic's son Marko is with the body, which lay overnight in the morgue at Schiphol airport, Amsterdam.

The transfer ends days of wrangling over Mr Milosevic's resting place.

On Wednesday a Russian doctor reviewing the results of an autopsy conducted on Mr Milosevic agreed with Dutch doctors that he died of a heart attack.

Mr Milosevic's family has accused the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague of causing the former president's death by refusing to allow him to travel to Russia for medical treatment.

The news that Mr Milosevic's body would be returned to Serbia was announced on state television in Belgrade on Tuesday night by Milorad Vucelic, a long-standing friend of the former president and now vice-president of his party.

Earlier, Mr Vucelic told the BBC that his party insisted on a funeral in Mr Milosevic's homeland.

"That would be only natural for a man who had led the country for such a long period," he said.

The former president led Serbia through the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

However, there are fears the event could trigger an outpouring of nationalist emotion.

The far-right opposition Radical Party has threatened to bring 100,000 sympathisers to Belgrade airport to welcome the arrival of Mr Milosevic's body.

Since the death of Mr Milosevic at the age of 64, negotiations have been under way between party officials and Belgrade City Council.

The first plot proposed by the council was inappropriate, according to party officials.

They have demanded an area suitable for a large funeral and accessible to well-wishers to the grave in the future. The date of the funeral has not been set.

Marko Milosevic had been pushing for a burial in Serbia and had accused the authorities of trying to prevent it.

Marko, who believes his father was murdered, had earlier said he might consider a funeral in Moscow if his mother's safety could not be guaranteed in Serbia.

Mr Milosevic's widow, Mira Markovic, has been living in self-imposed exile in Russia, fearing arrest on fraud charges if she returns to Serbia, reports the AP.

I.L.